Toucan Talks

The Death of Vanity Metrics: What Really Matters in 2025

• Kickstart Collective

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Vanity metrics look shiny—but they don’t pay the bills. In this episode, we break down the difference between numbers that look good (followers, likes, views) and the metrics that actually move your business forward. You’ll hear how we think about CAC, LTV, conversion rate, retention, and engagement quality, plus how to stitch reporting together across ads, website, and CRM so you can make smarter decisions—faster.

In this episode, you’ll learn

  • Vanity vs. value: Why engagement metrics matter contextually but shouldn’t be your north star.
  • The business metrics that count:
    • CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)—what you can afford to pay to win a customer
    • LTV (Customer Lifetime Value)—how much a customer is worth over time
    • Conversion rates across the funnel—from awareness ➜ lead ➜ sale
    • Retention & churn—what happens after the first sale
    • Engagement quality—signals like meaningful comments, site time, clicks, and forms
  • Website signals that diagnose ad quality: Bounce rate trends, landing page fit, and audience targeting.
  • Benchmarks & expectations: How to use industry benchmarks to sanity-check performance without chasing illusions.
  • Reporting cadence that works: Monthly formal reports; tighter checks during ad learning and creative testing.
  • Tooling that helps (without the headache): CRMs for sales dashboards, cross-platform reporting (e.g., Semrush), and native Shopify/Ads integrations.


Enjoyed the conversation? Follow and subscribe, share this with a teammate who lives in dashboards, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show. Got a question about your metrics stack? Send it our way and we might feature it next week.

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Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co

Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Kickstart Your Week this Monday morning, November 10th, I believe it is. We're gonna talk about my favorite thing, not really, but it is important. Um reporting. Um so um reporting is important when it comes to marketing. Um, because how else are you gonna know what's working and what's not working? Um, but it gets a little bit deeper um than a lot of people think. And you know this just as well as I do because you do a lot of our clients' monthly reports. Yes. There's a lot of metrics you can track. Yes. I think it's endless. But I think what's important, what we're gonna talk about today for people to understand is the difference between vanity metrics and then what's actually driving business and conversions. Um, so vanity metrics really are just things that I mean, I still think they're important. Um, I think there's you can learn from them. Um, but they're the things that, you know, they may look good, but they're not necessarily driving business.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah um, so that can be Instagram followers, likes, yeah, comments, views, yeah, on reels or TikToks.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Um, so things that they are measuring engagement and can measure like the quality of the content. Um, but just because a post gets good engagement doesn't necessarily mean anybody's taken an action to buy from a business or become a lead or anything like that. Um, so um, yeah, I mean again, when we're looking at reporting for social, those things are important. And we do pay attention to them and you should too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um because if there's like a huge drop, yes, one month, then it's kind of like, whoa, whoa, what's yeah, something something's not right. Yes. But yeah, there are other things that are also important.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. So if you're only looking at those things, then I think that's where it's like, okay, we gotta take this a step further and look at metrics that are actually impacting the bottom line at the end of the day. Um, so a little bit about why these vanity metrics are what they are. Do you remember back in the day? And I don't think it's happening as much now, but when people would buy followers. Oh, yes. Yeah. It was always controversial. Such a thing. Yeah. Yes. Um, so yes, on Instagram you could buy followers just to get a higher number. And I think this maybe more so came into play with like people pursuing like the influencer route. Oh, sure. Um, maybe more than like a small business. But I think brands are doing it too just to look like they had a bigger following than they did.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I mean, it does look good sometimes, you know? Oh, or like it's great. It it adds to like, oh, okay, you have a ton of followers. I I kind of trust what you're saying more. Like, I trust that you have a good product.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you know. Exactly. Um, it's just yeah, people jump on the bandwagon because they see a big follower. Um, I don't know. I don't, I haven't like that hasn't really been a thing lately, I don't think. Um, and I think Instagram cracked down on the bot stuff a lot a few years ago. So that probably helped with that. But um, I think that's when like the vanity metrics thing really became like a apparent. Yes, exactly. Um so yeah, I with that too, when you're looking at engagement on a post, that doesn't necessarily mean conversions. Um, it's still good to engage with your audience and X, Y, and Z. But at the end of the day, we need people to convert.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Um, and if you're if your only goal is to get a bunch of views on your reels or a bunch of likes on a carousel post or something like that, then I feel like that can sometimes lead to just putting just shoveling out content that has no real value. And don't don't get us wrong, it's important to be consistent with your content and to, you know, post frequently. Um, but if you're just like putting out whatever the most random things that like really mean nothing to you or your brand, then it can just be annoying to people sometimes. Yeah, that's true. You know? Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's and it's a lot of work on you.

SPEAKER_00:

It is. It is a lot of work. Um, so what are some things that, you know, really matter by the end of the day? To business metrics. Yes. The business metrics, um, as it relates to marketing to your bottom line. Um, so these are gonna be things like your um customer acquisition cost. Um, so how much does it cost for you to acquire a customer? Um, do you watch Shark Tank or like back? I don't know. It is still the thing. It's still on.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. Um I mean, I yeah, I have watched it before.

SPEAKER_00:

I feel like that the um is it Mr. Wonderful, the older guy, Kevin Leary. I feel like that's the question he like always asks, like um people pitching. It's like, what's your customer acquisition cost? Yeah. Um, and if he's asking it, you should be asking. You should be asking it too. Um, but I mean it is important because it's like if it costs you, let's say, a hundred dollars to acquire a customer, but you're selling a$50 product, like that doesn't make sense. Yeah. Now, if you, you know, are gonna make a$10,000 commission off of a hundred dollar acquisition, let's do that all day long. Yeah. And ramp up your ad budget and get more of those leads in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, good spot there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. But those are the sort of things that like you need to know, like how much does it cost? Um, and I mean, some startups, you the lifetime value of a customer um is gonna outweigh that initial acquisition cost. But that's, you know, things you need to know. Um, so customer lifetime value, I think, is the next one that's important. Um, are they going to buy only once? Um, if that's your business model, hopefully there's some things you can do to upsell them down the road. Um, but over the life of that customer, how much are they going to spend with you or whatever? And then figuring out the value of that will also help drive your marketing budget and those decisions. Um, but also just kind of helps you determine how healthy some of your campaigns are too, which that's a whole different rabbit trail, will not go down today. Um, but then beyond that, your conversion rate. Um, so going from, you know, maybe that awareness level, which could be on organic social, um, to them becoming a lead and then doing a sale. Um, so this could look like you putting an ad on Facebook, they subscribe to your newsletter or they subscribe, fill out a contact form, whatever it is. You captured them as a lead, and then actually converting them into a sale. So going from each part of drawing a funnel. Drawing a funnel. Going down the funnel, what is that conversion rate each time? Like what's the drop-off there? Um, you're not, I mean, I don't think anyone's gonna convert 100%. Um, that doesn't make sense. Um, but knowing, you know, what those numbers are will tell you then on that top level, like how many people you need to reach. Yeah. Um to then get a sell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's always important to map out your funnel and your customer journey journey just to to exactly to know how many people you need to be reaching, what that's gonna cost for you. Yep. Um, because the further down the funnel you go, the more expensive yeah, it's gonna get it.

SPEAKER_00:

Very true. Um, and there's a lot of industry like averages numbers out there for things too. Um, like benchmarks, I guess is the word I'm looking for. Um, so you can Google it like, hey, what's the conversion rate for Google ads and you know, the automotive industry, or like what's the conversion rate for dentists on Facebook ads, like med ads. Um those numbers are out there to give you a benchmark of like, are we in line with these? And if it's, you know, way off, then we need to circle back on like what's the creative, what's the strategy. Um and then just like your retention and your churn rate on things. Like, I don't know, we need to go into depth on that, but um, just something else to pay like attention to, or if especially if you are like a subscription style business or people, you know, signing up for three months because that's when your promo offer was, and then they're canceling. Yeah. Um get their little free window. Yeah. Um, so just paying attention to those sort of numbers um are gonna again drive like your offers, it's gonna drive probably your marketing campaigns, but then it's gonna impact the business at the end of the day, um, more so than tracking, you know, Instagram followers.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Which are important. I think maybe uh something that's kind of in between that's still important to keep track of is like the your engagement quality. Yeah. Like are people are people leaving meaningful comments or are they spending time on your website? Are they clicking around on your website? Are they, you know, filling out forms on your website, that sort of thing. Are how what is the quality of the people that are interacting with your stuff?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that is a really good point. Cause I mean, we didn't really talk too much about website metrics, but that is something else we look at on a regular basis. Like if you're driving a ton of traffic, let's say from a Facebook ad, um, but then your bounce rate on your website is creeping up with this campaign, then okay, let's revisit the targeting of this ad. Or let's revisit, you know, whatever page we're are we landing them on the correct page on the website? Um, does that page, is that page working as hard as it should? Um, so there's combining some of those metrics is a good place to start like digging um to make sure everything's working together as it should. Um so yeah, no, that was that's a good point. Website website sets are important too. Um so again, I think all this really, though, is going back to like the quality of one of your reports. What are you the quality of what you're tracking, but then how those are gonna point to like the quality of your leads and your content versus just the quantity. Yeah. Quality over quantity.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah all day long. It's not always about what like is impressive or popular. You got to make sure that the metrics line up with what your business's goals are.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. Um, so yeah, I mean, there's lots of ways to track these. I mean, the the more meaningful metrics they are, harder to to track. If you're not you, I always go back like if you're e-commerce, it's kind of easy because your conversion's happening online and Shopify's gonna talk to Facebook and Google and blah blah blah. Um, but if you're a service-based business or that checkout or like money transaction is not happening online, it is a little bit harder because you have to go back um and connect the dots a lot of times. Um, but like your CRM probably will have some dashboards you can build out for sales. Um, we use um Simrush for a lot of our reporting that talks to a lot of platforms and helps connect all the dots. Um, so I would just say, you know, it's Monday, some point this week. Just think about like what do I need to be tracking for my business? And how can I set up some sort of dashboard or reporting to where it's not gonna be like a huge process? Yeah. Um, because it needs to be something that you can keep an eye on um on an ongoing basis that's not gonna be like digging through spreadsheets and calling your sale. Like, yeah, it needs to be attainable and easy. So, and there's so like there's so many platforms and things you can use to get this set up. It is a heavy lift, usually at the beginning. But then once that happens, um, you can just have better reporting, better information, make better decisions down the road with your marketing and your your business. So um, you know, I think that was my spiel. You got anything else you want to spiel?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, we we do our reporting on a monthly basis, yeah, which can also kind of seem hefty, you know, to do like look at that every single month, but it really is worth it. Yeah. Because you want to make sure you're on the right track. And if something, I mean, God forbid, is going terribly wrong, you want to know. Yeah. So keeping up with that on I would say monthly basis is probably good for fair practice.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, yeah. And when we launch like new like Google or Facebook campaigns, especially if it's a new client, like we're looking at those things every day. We're not, you know, formulating a formal report right every day. Um, but we're looking at the metrics because if it's, you know, after their learning period, go back about a month ago. Talk about the learning period of ads. Um, but once it's out of that, I mean, hopefully, if it doesn't get out of that phase, then course correction needs to happen quickly. Yeah. Um, but once it's out of that and we're testing multiple creatives, we need to see which ones are converting and understand why. So we can build more like that and less like whatever's not converting. Um, so there's a lot of A-B testing, which is why keeping an eye on metrics that matter is important. Um, so yeah, reporting is not, you know, a glamorous topic to start your week with, but I hopefully necessary. It is necessary. Um, so hopefully that was helpful. Um, if you guys have questions, obviously feel free to reach out. Um, otherwise, if you are not getting kickstart your week in your inbox every Monday, head to our website. You can join our um newsletter list. It's also you can subscribe on YouTube. We have the audio uploaded to Spotify and Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Um, so yeah, join us every Monday morning from here on out and kickstart your week with us. Thanks.